Gettysburg--Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill

By Harry W. Pfanz

In this companion to his celebrated earlier book, Gettysburg--The Second Day, Harry Pfanz provides the first definitive account of the fighting between the Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill--two of the most critical engagements fought at Gettysburg on 2 and 3 July 1863. Pfanz provides detailed tactical accounts of each stage of the contest and explores the interactions between--and decisions made by--generals on both sides. In particular, he illuminates Confederate lieutenant general Richard S. Ewell's controversial decision not to attack Cemetery Hill after the initial southern victory on 1 July. Pfanz also explores other salient features of the fighting, including the Confederate occupation of the town of Gettysburg, the skirmishing in the south end of town and in front of the hills, the use of breastworks on Culp's Hill, and the small but decisive fight between Union cavalry and the Stonewall Brigade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780807869741

Harry W. Pfanz

Harry W. Pfanz is author of Gettysburg--The First Day and Gettysburg--The Second Day. A lieutenant, field artillery, during World War II, he served for ten years as a historian at Gettysburg National Military Park and retired from the position of Chief Historian of the National Park Service in 1981.

Book preview

GETTYSBURG—CULP’S HILL AND CEMETERY HILL

CIVIL WAR AMERICA

GARY W. GALLAGHER,

EDITOR

GETTYSBURG—CULP’S HILL AND CEMETERY HILL

HARRY W. PFANZ

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

CHAPEL HILL & LONDON

© 1993 The University of

North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the

United States of America

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and

durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book

Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pfanz, Harry W. (Harry Willcox), 1921-

   Gettysburg—Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill /

by Harry W. Pfanz.

     p. cm.

   Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8078-2118-7 (cloth: alk. paper)

ISBN 0-8078-4996-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)

   1. Gettysburg (Pa.), Battle of, 1863.1. Title.

E457.53.P43 1993

973.7'349—dc20 93-3323

CIP

05 04 03 02 01 7 6 5 4 3

First paperback printing

To the memory of our parents

Harry E. and Marion Wilcox Pfanz

Donald M. and Louise Crittenden Earll

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Two Generals and Their Armies

2. The Only Position

3. Ewell and Howard Collide

4. Retreat to Cemetery Hill

5. The Rebels Take the Town

6. Ewell Hesitates

7. Slocum and Hancock Reach the Field

8. Getting Ready for the Fight

9. Skirmishers, Sharpshooters, and Civilians

10. Brinkerhoff’s Ridge

11. The Artillery, 2 July

12. Blunder on the Right

13. Johnson Attacks!

14. Early Attacks Cemetery Hill

15. Cemetery Hill—The Repulse

16. Culp’s Hill—Johnson’s Assault, 3 July

17. The Last Attacks

18. Counterattacks near Spangler’s Spring

19. 3 July, Mostly Afternoon

20. Epilogue

Appendix A. Spangler’s Spring

Appendix B. Two Controversies

Appendix C. Order of Battle: Army of the Potomac and Army of Northern Virginia, 1-3 July 1863

Notes

Bibliography

Index

MAPS

  2.1 Gettysburg Campaign, 30 June-1 July, 17

  3.1 Gettysburg Area, 36

  6.1 Close of Battle, 1 July, 74

  8.1 Culp’s Hill Defenses, Afternoon, 2 July, 113

  9.1 Gettysburg South of Middle Street, 135

10.1 Brinkerhoff’s Ridge, 2 July, 155

11.1 Artillery Positions, Late Afternoon, 2 July, 172

13.1 Johnson’s Division Attacks, Evening, 2 July, 207

14.1 Early’s Division’s Assault, 7:30 P.M., 2 July, 238

15.1 Early and Rodes Fail to Take Cemetery Hill, 2 July, 266

16.1 Johnson’s Division Attacks at Daybreak, 3 July, 286

16.2 Johnson’s Second Attack, 3 July, 301

17.1 Johnson’s Final Attack, 3 July, 311

18.1 The Union Far-Right, 3 July, 332

18.2 Counterattack at Spangler’s Spring, 3 July, 342

ILLUSTRATIONS

Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, 3

Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, 8

Gettysburg from Cemetery Hill, 21

Fahnestock building, 24

Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz, 27

Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon, 39

Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday, 43

Col. Charles S. Wainwright, 51

Culp’s Hill from Cemetery Hill, 56

Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early, 66

Brig. Gen. William Smith, 68

Gen. Robert E. Lee, 82

Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum, 90

Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, 99

Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, 108

Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt, 111

Brig. Gen. James S. Wadsworth, 115

Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson, 124

Footbridge near McAllister’s Mill, 131

Col. Charles R. Coster, 134

Snider’s Wagon Hotel, 136

Baltimore Street north from Cemetery Hill, 137

Brig. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr, 144

Col. Orland Smith, 146

Brig. Gen. James A. Walker, 157

Brig. Gen. David McM. Gregg, 158

Col. John B. Mcintosh, 160

Col. J. Irvin Gregg, 161

Maj. Joseph W. Latimer, 169

A Federal battery in the cemetery, 174

Maj. Thomas W. Osborn, 176

The Runaway Limber, 183

Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams, 192

Brig. Gen. Henry H. Lockwood, 197

Brig. Gen. John W. Geary, 202

Brig. Gen. John M. Jones, 208

Brig. Gen. George S. Greene, 212

Lt. Randolph H. McKim, 219

Col. Charles Candy, 224

Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Kane, 225

Col. George A. Cobham, Jr., 226

Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Ruger, 230

Col. Archibald L. McDougall, 231

Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays, 237

Col. Isaac E. Avery, 239

Col. George von Amsberg, 241

Brig. Gen. Adelbert Ames, 242

Col. Andrew L. Harris, 244

Col. Leopold von Gilsa, 246

View toward Gettysburg from East Cemetery Hill, 248

Officers of the 153d Pennsylvania Regiment, 251

The field of Hoke’s brigade’s attack, 256

The assault of Hays’s brigade on East Cemetery Hill, 257

Colonel Avery’s last message, 259

Col. Wladimir Krzyzanowski, 264

Col. Samuel S. Carroll, 265

Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes, 277

Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur, 279

Brig. Gen. Junius Daniel, 289

Confederate skirmishers on Culp’s Hill, 294

Col. Edward A. O’Neal, 302

Mending the Flag, 303

Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart, 312

The 29th Pennsylvania Regiment on Culp’s Hill, 317

Capt. William H. Murray, 319

Brig. Gen. Alexander Shaler, 324

Pvt. John Wesley Culp, 329

Col. Silas Colgrove, 334

Capt. Thomas R. Robeson, 335

Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Neill, 336

Lt. Col. Charles R. Mudge, 344

The meadow from McDougall’s brigade’s position, 349

Wesley Culp’s rifle stock, 354

Damaged trees on Culp’s Hill, 356

Cemetery gatehouse, 372

Procession to Soldiers' National Cemetery, 19 November 1863, 374

PREFACE

When Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard, commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Eleventh Corps, reached Gettysburg on the morning of 1 July 1863, he saw the tactical potential of Cemetery Hill should the Union forces at Gettysburg have to go on the defensive. As soon as his troops arrived, he established his headquarters on the hill and prepared to defend it as a rallying point. From the late afternoon of 1 July, when the Union First and Eleventh corps retreated to the hill, until the end of the battle, Cemetery Hill was the keystone of the Union position south of Gettysburg.

But it was not enough to occupy Cemetery Hill alone. If the Union position on Cemetery Hill was not to be turned, Union forces must also hold Cemetery Ridge to its left rear and Culp’s Hill to its right. Maj. Gen. Win-field S. Hancock, whom Maj. Gen. George G. Meade sent to Gettysburg to take command of the forces there, ordered this done almost at once. Thus it was that the Army of the Potomac established its famed hook-shaped line at Gettysburg.

Gen. Robert E. Lee, who tried to hold the initiative throughout the battle, attacked the Union left and center on the afternoon of 2 July and the Union center on 3 July (in Pickett’s Charge). Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s corps of the Army of Northern Virginia was to support these attacks by simultaneous assaults against the Union right on Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill. Ewell’s decision not to try to seize these hills on the late afternoon of 1 July, the measures taken by Ewell’s corps to cooperate with the Confederate attacks on 2 and 3 July, and the Army of the Potomac’s defense of Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill are the subject of this monograph.

The battles on Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill were part and parcel of the battle of Gettysburg as a whole and were conceived as integral parts of the assaults on the Union left and center. Yet, as it turned out, they were essentially separate from Lee’s two major thrusts and the Federal effort to repulse them. A small portion of the Twelfth Corps became briefly and actively engaged in the repulse of Longstreet’s attack on 2 July. Although Eleventh Corps batteries fired at Confederate batteries prior to Pickett’s Charge and briefly fired at troops on the left of the Confederate assault column, these efforts were tangential to their defense of the two important hills. Therefore, I have confined this monograph to the operations and people directly associated with the attack and defense of these hills to the exclusion of definitive discussions of the battle on other parts of the field.

The battle on the Union right had two or three rather unique qualities at the time it was fought. First of all, there was the retreat through Gettysburg and the subsequent fighting in the town. There had been some street fighting at Fredericksburg, Virginia, of course, but little of it elsewhere at this stage of the war. Secondly, although skirmishing was omnipresent throughout the war, some of the skirmishing in front of Cemetery Hill was particularly vicious. Finally, breastworks had been used since the early battles of the war, but their contribution to the defense of Culp’s Hill was a harbinger of things soon to come in Virginia.

A comment on sources used might be in order. Except for those relating to the 1st Maryland Battalion (often called the 2d Battalion in later years), the accounts of operations of Confederate regiments, brigades, and divisions are skimpy. I suspect that this is due in some part to the fact that the Confederate assaults were at dusk on 2 July and that on both 2 and 3 July the Confederates on Culp’s Hill fought in woods. Not only were these actions devoid of conspicuous glory, but the men involved had a very limited view and understanding of what was going on around them. It was a lonely, deadly experience that must have left unpleasant recollections that were hard to record on paper. Fortunately, Union sources, though seldom as good as they might have been, were generally helpful, and the Confederate story is often mirrored in them. It seems to me that the failure of Generals Ewell and Edward Johnson to supplement their official reports with more extensive and candid narratives is a particularly great loss to posterity.

I attempted this monograph with the intention of trying to provide a reasonably definitive account of this portion of the battle, one that has been lacking to this time. Beyond that, I hope that this effort will have one special positive result—I would like for it to increase interest in this portion of the battlefield and further its preservation. At this time, much of the area that should be preserved in its historic character is still in private hands and is subject to development that will destroy it. Some of it is lost each year; if the land not already inside the park is not protected soon, it will be gone.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study could not have been done without the aid of many people, most of whom work in manuscript repositories and libraries throughout the eastern United States. I regret that I cannot list all the names of those who have provided assistance.

I must first acknowledge the kind help of several staff members at the Gettysburg National Military Park. They are Kathleen Georg Harrison, D. Scott Hartwig, Robert Prosperi, Paul M. Shevchuk, Karen L. Finley, and Eric A. Campbell. They helped me use the park’s library and files and were the source of much useful information. More than that, they made me feel as though I was still one of the park’s family.

It would be very difficult to write anything of substance about the Army of Northern Virginia without the help and advice of my friend Robert K. Krick, the chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Bob went out of his way to make sure that I had access to useful Confederate sources in his custody and provided encouragement and good advice. I owe him a great deal. I am indebted also to his son, Robert E. L. Krick, of the Richmond National Battlefield Park, who furnished me with copies of unpublished Confederate reports that I would have otherwise missed.

My son, Donald C. Pfanz, a National Park Service historian at Fredericksburg and an authority on Gen. Richard S. Ewell, was of help in many ways. He read some of the chapters, checked sources for me, and most of all shared his views on Ewell and provided me with information on him and some of his comrades that I might have overlooked.

I am indebted also to two outstanding archivist-historians known to every serious scholar in the field of military history: Michael P. Musick at the National Archives and Richard J. Sommers at the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Both have been of help to me on this project and in the past. Pamela Cheney, in Dr. Sommers’s office, assisted me there during my most recent visits.

Many of the illustrations used also came from the Military History Institute. Michael J. Winey, as always, received me cordially there and helped me find what I needed. James Enos copied the photographs obtained at Carlisle for me, while an old friend, Walter Lane, copied those at Gettysburg.

Two persons from the Northeast graciously furnished me with useful material. Henry Roberts of Middlebury, Connecticut, one of whose ancestors served with the 9th Massachusetts Regiment, gave me material relating to that fine unit. Christian J. Heidorf of Gansevoort, New York, a fellow artilleryman who shares my interest in the Culp’s Hill fight, provided me with appropriate portions of letters of Lt. Robert Cruikshank of the 123d New York Regiment. Clair P. Lyons, Junius R. Fishburne, Jr., and Mrs. C. Hughes Lyon were equally gracious in permitting me to use materials belonging to them that are currently on file in repositories listed in the bibliography.

I am indebted to staff members at various manuscript repositories for their assistance at the time of my visits to their institutions. Foremost among these was Susan Ravdin at Bowdoin College, whose knowledge of the Oliver Otis Howard Papers enabled me to explore them with some dispatch. I am greatly indebted to John E. White at the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Pat Weber at Duke University, and William Copely at the New Hampshire Historical Society.

Other librarians and archivists who helped me include Thomas Knoles of the American Antiquarian Society, Judy Bolton at Louisiana State University, Mary Linn Bandaries at Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Julia Hodges at Tulane University, Diane B. Jacob at the Virginia Military Institute, Carl Peterson at Colgate University, J. D. Stinson at the New York Public Library, Ervin L. Jordan at the University of Virginia, Jesse R. Lankford, Jr., at the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Christian P. Bickford at the Connecticut State Historical Society, Louise Arnold Friend at the library of the Army War College, Charles H. Gladfelter of the Adams County Historical Society in Gettysburg, and David T. Hedrick of Gettysburg College. I also appreciate the assistance given by several reference librarians of the Montgomery County, Maryland, libraries.

It was a pleasure as always to talk with my old friend and colleague Col. Jacob M. Sheads of Gettysburg about old and current times and about matters relating to this book. As always, he was generous with materials from his voluminous files. Others in Gettysburg who supplied me with information include William Ridinger and Wayne E. Motts. A fourth Gettysburgian, Arthur L. Kennell, superintendent of Evergreen Cemetery, answered a number of my questions relating to that important place.

Two North Carolinians with a special interest in Col. Isaac E. Avery and Hoke’s brigade were very generous with their time and information. One of these was John R. Bass of Spring Hope, the other Fred Mende of Charlotte. Fred read my Cemetery Hill chapters, made pertinent comments regarding them, and spent some hours on the battlefield with me.

I should not forget three friends who encouraged and assisted me with their advice and counsel. They are Edwin C. Bearss, Gary W. Gallagher, and A. Wilson Greene. All are known to people with more than a casual interest in the Civil War. Gary and Will, along with Bob Krick, invited me to participate in their Mount Alto Conference of 1991, which dealt in part with the fighting on Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill.

I cannot fail to mention the help of many people associated with the University of North Carolina Press, particularly Matthew Hodgson, Ron Maner, and Paula Wald. Paula brought a measure of order from the chaos of my drafts and saved me from much embarrassment. I deeply appreciate the good work that she has done. Eliza McClennen prepared the maps.

There were others who helped me with information and with friendly support. Some of these good folks were Vicki K. Heilig, Greg Clemmer, and Charles T. Jacobs of the Montgomery County Civil War Round Table; Roy Trimmer of Silver Spring, Maryland; Robert Weiland of Gettysburg; Arthur Eckert of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Dean Schultz of Littles-town, Pennsylvania; Amos C. Pearsall, Jr., of Des Moines, Iowa; L. P. Nelson of St. Paul, Minnesota; and John and Joyce Klimkiewicz of Rockville, Maryland.

No project of this scope, undertaken by a retiree at home, can fail to involve his family. I mentioned above the help given me by my son Donald; I also appreciate the help of his wife, Betty. My wife, Letitia, bore the brunt of it all. In addition to accommodating my work at home and its intrusion into her life, she traveled with me to numerous libraries where she handled logistical matters, often copied materials by machine and hand, and simply waited. Her sister, Elizabeth E. Verlie, made helpful editorial suggestions on some of the chapters. My son, Maj. Frederick W. Pfanz, who knows much about military matters past and present, favored me with his comments. Fred’s wife, Carol; my daughter Marion and her husband, James E. Ake; and my five grandchildren joined the other members of my immediate family in providing the most desirable things of all: support, affection, and diversion.

1

TWO GENERALS AND THEIR ARMIES

Two generals — corps commanders — confronted one another at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, late on the afternoon of 1 July 1863. One, a Confederate lieutenant general, whose troops had just smashed the Union Eleventh Corps and driven it in retreat through the streets of Gettysburg, sought to determine if he should push on and try to seize the high ground just south of the town where Union troops were rallying. The other, a Union major general, was on that high ground, Cemetery Hill, and was attempting to organize his badly mauled forces to meet an attack that he believed would soon come.

The generals were extraordinary fellows. Both were graduates of West Point but from classes fourteen years apart. Both were brave beyond doubt, and both had already lost limbs in battle—one a leg, the other an arm. Both were eccentric, and both had been affected by the recent battle of Chancellorsville but in very different ways. The Union general and his corps had been crushed and had suffered heavy casualties there, but worse, many people in and out of the Army of the Potomac blamed them for the Union defeat and vilified them. The Confederate general had not been at Chancellorsville himself, but his men had triumphed there, and now he commanded them in place of the mortally wounded Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson.

The Confederate lieutenant general was Richard Stoddert Ewell. Ewell was a Virginian and the grandson of Benjamin Stoddert, the nation’s first secretary of the navy. Although Ewell had prominent family connections, he had been reared in near poverty at Stony Lonesome, a farm near Manassas, Virginia.¹ Ewell managed to get an appointment to West Point’s class of 1840, which included William T. Sherman and George H. Thomas. After graduating, he served on the frontier with the 1st Regiment of Dragoons. During the Mexican War Ewell and his company formed Gen. Winfield Scott’s mounted escort, and he won a brevet. After the war, Ewell campaigned long and actively in the Southwest against the Apaches. He had performed well throughout his career and had developed an enviable reputation among his peers. Then came the Civil War.

Ewell did not support secession and had much to lose by it. Nevertheless, he resigned his Old Army commission on 7 May 1861 and entered Virginia’s service as a lieutenant colonel. He briefly commanded a cavalry camp of instruction at Ashland, Virginia, and on 17 June became a brigadier general. He commanded a brigade at First Manassas but saw no heavy fighting. In February 1862, now a major general, he received command of a division and led it in the Shenandoah Valley during Jackson’s campaign there. He commanded his division in the Seven Days' battles, at Cedar Mountain, and at Groveton, where he was shot in the left knee. This wound led to the amputation of his left leg, and Ewell missed the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.

Ewell proved to be a skillful and successful division commander, and unlike Ambrose P. Hill and others, he was able to get along with Stonewall Jackson. His bravery was legendary, and often he commanded his division as he had led his dragoon company—from the front.

Ewell was no Adonis. He was five feet, eight inches tall, thin, and had gray eyes and a fringe of brown hair on a domed bald head. Richard Taylor, who had commanded the Louisiana brigade in his division in the Shenandoah Valley, described Ewell as having bright prominent eyes, a bomb-shaped, bald head, and a nose like that of Francis of Valois [that] gave him striking resemblance to a woodcock. In addition, he had a lisp that gave an added dimension to his pungent comments and to the blistering profanity he used when irritated.²

Ewell had chronic health problems associated with malaria and with his digestive system, but these ailments did not adversely affect his military performance. He rivaled Stonewall Jackson in eccentricity, but when not irritated he was pleasant and affable. He seemed devoid of vanity and had little untoward ambition. In the postwar years, when all too many former Confederate leaders sought to buttress their reputations by imputing blame for Confederate misfortunes to others, Ewell, like Gen. Robert E. Lee, remained silent. After his death in 1872, his stepdaughter Harriet Stoddert Turner wrote, I know how much he suffered from ignorant censure & unjust criticism.³

Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell (MM)

Ewell had been a romantic in his youth and was an ardent admirer of young ladies of quality, few of whom he met on the frontier. He had wooed his cousin Lizinka Campbell without success but had not seriously pursued other ladies he admired. Then, during the recuperation from the amputation of his left leg, he got the chance to woo Lizinka again. By then she was the wealthy widow of a Mississippi planter named Brown, and Ewell won the widow’s heart and hand. The new Mrs. Ewell, who curbed the general’s swearing, was the mother of Maj. G. Campbell Brown, who had been on Ewell’s staff since early in the war and in some measure would become his Boswell.

Ewell, at forty-six years of age and minus his left leg, returned to active duty after Chancellorsville to take command of Jackson’s old corps, the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, with the grade of lieutenant general. His assignment met with wide approval. Jedediah Hotchkiss, the corps' topographical engineer, recalled that no risk is run in asserting that the entire Second Corps desired him to be Jackson’s successor, and his appointment gave general satisfaction to the officers and men of that grand body of fighters and victory winners.⁴

When Ewell accepted the corps command, he tactfully invited Jackson’s staff to stay on with him. After meeting his new commander again, Maj. Alexander S. (Sandie) Pendleton, the corps adjutant, wrote: General Ewell is in fine health and in fine spirits,—rides on horseback as well as anyone needs to. The more I see of him the more I am pleased to be with him. In some traits of character he is very much like General Jackson, especially in his total disregard of his own comfort and safety, and his inflexibility of purpose. He is so thoroughly honest, too, and has only one desire, to conquer the Yankees. I look for great things from him, and am glad to say that our troops have for him a good deal of the same feeling they had towards General Jackson.⁵

The loss of Jackson triggered a reorganization of the Army of Northern Virginia. For some time, it had had two corps commanded by Gens. James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson plus a cavalry division commanded by Maj. Gen. James E. B. (Jeb) Stuart. After Chancellorsville, General Lee had to find replacements for ranking officers lost in the battle or found wanting and sought to obtain greater efficiency by reducing the size of his corps. His solution for the latter was to reorganize his 75,000 troops into three corps of three divisions each and a cavalry division together with supporting artillery. With three exceptions, each infantry division would have four brigades. The artillery, formed into battalions, would be assigned to the three corps and to the cavalry.

In this new organization, General Longstreet would continue to command the First Corps, Ewell would take the Second, and the Third would go to A. P. Hill, formerly commander of the famous Light Division. It is significant perhaps that General Lee had not recently worked closely with Hill and that Ewell had worked directly under Jackson and not Lee. In short, Lee would soon launch a major campaign with two new corps commanders, one of whom had not previously been his immediate subordinate. This would affect Ewell in particular, for he was accustomed to the tight-rein style of command employed by Stonewall Jackson and not the hands-off manner of General Lee.

Ewell’s corps had divisions commanded by three major generals: Jubal A. Early, Edward Johnson, and Robert E. Rodes. Early’s division had four brigades: a Louisiana brigade commanded by Harry T. Hays, a Georgia brigade commanded by John B. Gordon, Virginians under William (Extra Billy) Smith, and Robert F. Hoke’s North Carolinians. Hoke, however, had been wounded at Chancellorsville, and in his absence Col. Isaac E. Avery of the 6th North Carolina Regiment would lead his Tarheels.

Rodes’s division underwent some change. It had been Daniel H. Hill’s division, but Rodes had commanded it at Chancellorsville and had done well. Now it was his. For some reason, the division had five brigades instead of the usual four. Rodes’s old Alabama brigade was commanded by Col. Edward A. O’Neal of its 26th Alabama Regiment. Brig. Gen. George Doles continued to command his Georgia brigade, and there were two North Carolina brigades under Brig. Gens. Stephen D. Ramseur and Alfred Iverson. It also had a large new North Carolina brigade under Brig. Gen. Junius Daniel.

The greatest changes had taken place in the division once commanded by Stonewall himself. It was said that Jackson had been saving the command of this division for Isaac R. Trimble, who had been wounded at Second Manassas, but Trimble had not yet recovered. Therefore, General Lee assigned it to Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson, a newcomer to the Army of Northern Virginia.⁶

But that was not all. Each of the division’s four brigades needed a new commander. Elisha F. Paxton of the Stonewall Brigade had been killed at Chancellorsville; his place would be taken by James A. Walker, who had commanded other brigades at Antietam and Fredericksburg. John R. Jones was dismissed from service after having left the field at Chancellorsville; his place would be taken by John M. Jones. There was a special problem involving North Carolina-Virginia pride in the brigade once led by Raleigh E. Colston; General Lee resolved it by assigning the 1st Maryland Battalion to the brigade and placing Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart, a Marylander, in command. The final brigade, that of Brig. Gen. Francis R. Nicholls, needed at least a temporary commander for Nicholls had lost a foot at Chancellorsville. General Lee designated Col. Jesse M. Williams of the 2d Louisiana Regiment as the brigade’s acting commander.⁷

Therefore, though the Army of Northern Virginia had a new and seemingly more efficient organization, two of its corps had commanders new to their assignments. Furthermore, one, Richard S. Ewell, had lost a leg and was returning to duty with whatever handicap that condition might create. The other new commander, Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill, had worsening health. We know with the benefit of hindsight that Hill would not measure up to the reputation he had gained as a division commander. Both of these generals would bear some responsibility for Confederate operations against Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg.⁸

The Army of the Potomac had suffered 17,000 casualties at Chancellorsville and had lost a number of units whose period of service had expired. Yet it was not reorganized. In June 1863 it continued to consist of seven corps of infantry, each supported by a brigade of artillery, most having five batteries, a cavalry corps supported by two brigades of artillery, and its Artillery Reserve—a powerful collection of twenty-one batteries formed in five brigades. It had three new corps commanders: Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock of the Second Corps, George Sykes of the Fifth, and Brig. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton of the Cavalry Corps.⁹

Six of the seven infantry corps were proven fighting machines, but popular opinion within the army considered one corps, the Eleventh, to be a question mark at best. Formerly the First Corps of John Pope’s Army of Virginia, the Eleventh Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, had come to the Army of the Potomac after the battle of Second Manassas. Through design or fortune, it had not taken part in the heavier fighting either at Antietam or Fredericksburg, and Sigel had left it in February 1863. Gens. Carl Schurz and Adolph von Steinwehr, two of its division commanders, were its acting commanders for a few weeks, and then Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard took command.

Howard’s appointment was made neither in heaven nor by angels. In retrospect, the post would seem to have called for an experienced, nononsense disciplinarian like Hancock or Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds. Instead it fell to an officer whose demonstrated ability was balanced by his being young and rather inexperienced.

Howard was born in Leeds, Maine, on 8 November 1830, the son of a farmer who died when he was nine. He attended public schools and in 1850 graduated from Bowdoin College. Although he had taught school, he was undecided about a career, and when an uncle who was a congressman offered him an appointment to West Point, he took it. Therefore, at age nineteen, with a college degree already in hand, he entered the academy’s class of 1854.¹⁰ Howard had no problem with his studies at West Point, but he was placed in Coventry for a time during his plebe year for reasons unknown today. His classmates included W. Dorsey Pender, Stephen H. Weed, and Thomas H. Ruger, and by the time of his graduation he numbered G. W. Custis Lee and Jeb Stuart among his closer friends.¹¹

After graduation, Howard married and served as a subaltern in the Ordnance Department. In 1857 he returned to West Point as an instructor in mathematics. In the years that followed, he fathered three children, conducted a Bible class for enlisted men and civilians, and studied theology with a local Episcopal priest with the idea of going into the ministry. Religion permeated his life, in much the same way that it had influenced Stonewall Jackson’s.¹²

War came, and in June 1861 Howard exchanged his lieutenancy for the colonelcy of the 3d Maine Regiment. This appointment suggests that though he might not have dabbled in politics, he had support from Maine’s important politicians. Howard was twenty-nine at this time. A member of the 3d Maine described him then as a pale young man, . . . slender with earnest eyes, a profusion of flowing moustache and beard. Actually, he was about five feet, nine inches tall and had blue eyes. A later description by Maj. Thomas W. Osborn, his chief of artillery, held him to be of slight build with heavy dark hair and undistinguished eyes, a strong but not an impressive man. Frank A. Haskell of the Second Corps wrote that Howard was a very pleasant, affable, well dressed little gentleman—something that no one would have said of Ewell.¹³

Major Osborn had other things to say of Howard as he saw him in 1865. He wrote that the general never overcame mannerisms such as fidgety gestures and a shrill voice. On the other hand Osborn termed Howard the highest toned gentleman he had ever known. He believed him to be neither a profound thinker like Sherman nor a man with large natural ability. He did not call out from his troops the enthusiastic applause that Generals Logan and Hooker do, yet, wrote Osborn, every officer and man has unbounded confidence in him. This might have been the real Howard of 1865, but it was not necessarily the Howard of 1861.¹⁴

Howard took the 3d Maine to Washington, D.C., to train it. However, he received an assignment to a brigade command and led his brigade to Manassas only about two months after he resigned his lieutenancy. Howard found the battle particularly offensive because it took place on a Sunday. He became unnerved momentarily by the sights and sounds of the fight, but he responded to his fright by praying to God that he might do his duty, and he claimed that the fear left him, never to return.¹⁵

Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard (WLM)

Howard became a brigadier general on 3 September 1861. He led a Second Corps brigade in the Peninsular campaign until he fell at Fair Oaks on 1 June 1862 with two wounds, one of which cost him his right arm. He returned to Maine to recuperate but did not dally and was back with the army and in command of another Second Corps brigade in time for Second Manassas. He led this brigade at Antietam, and when his division commander, John Sedgwick, was wounded, Howard was there to take command. He continued to command the division at Fredericksburg and became a major general on 29 November 1862.¹⁶

In February 1863, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, assigned his friend Daniel E. Sickles to the command of its Third Corps. Howard and Sickles shared the same promotion date to the grade of brigadier general, but Howard had ranked Sickles as a colonel. Thus, Howard had grounds for protesting that he had seniority over the bumptious Sickles and more right to a corps command than he. Hooker had to give Howard heed and on 2 April 1863 appointed him to the command of the Eleventh Corps.¹⁷

Howard’s appointment was an unwelcome surprise to the Eleventh Corps, particularly to its Germans, for they had hoped for the return of their beloved Franz Sigel. In later years, Howard wrote that his reception by the members of the corps was outwardly cordial, but that they did not know him, and there was much dissatisfaction at the removal of Sigel. Howard and his brother and aide, Maj. Charles H. Howard, soon felt that Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz, who ranked just beneath Howard in the corps, was working against him. Truly, the corps' German element could not have felt that it had much in common with such a straitlaced fellow. For one thing, Howard did not drink; he believed alcohol to be a poison injurious to the mental and moral life of a soldier, and such a view would have gained little support, even among the relatively few native New Englanders in the corps. Apart from that, Howard did not have the easy sense of humor and toleration that would have been helpful in developing empathy with a body of troops.¹⁸

But Howard gained toleration even if he did not replace Sigel in the Germans' affections. First of all, he retained much of the old corps staff for the time being, particularly Lt. Col. Charles W. Assmussen, the chief of staff, and Lt. Col. Theodore A. Meysenburg, the adjutant general, both of whom were German. Howard came to admire both, even though he wrote of Assmussen, He drinks some but never lets me see him do so. Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday, who developed a dislike for Howard at Gettysburg, wrote with jaundiced exaggeration that Howard’s staff was made up of ministers and religious people who were looking out for their own interests. This would not have been true of Meysenburg and Assmussen.¹⁹

Howard did other positive things. Capt. Frederick C. Winkler wrote that the general was an active man who took note of everything. He recalled Howard’s visiting a corps bakery where he heard a wagon master swearing. Howard called the man aside—he did not speak to him in front of other soldiers—and told him that it was the first such language that he had heard since coming to the corps and that he did not wish to hear any more. Later in the day another soldier, who was serving as an orderly, told Winkler that when he had held the general’s horse to help him mount, Howard had said, Thank you. The orderly commented, Nobody said that to me before since I have been in the service.²⁰

In later years at least, some of the ranking officers did not care for Howard. Hooker, who had an axe to grind, called him a fraud and deemed Maj. Gen. George Sykes, commander of the Fifth Corps, as much superior to him as a soldier as night is to day. Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt wrote in a private letter, As to the ‘Christian soldier,’ I have no great opinion of him, either as a soldier or as head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, or as a man.²¹

People called Howard the Christian Soldier but not always as a compliment. This was particularly so after the war when Howard gained a high profile and became controversial. The Howard of 1863 was probably closer to the man seen by Col. Charles S. Wainwright, chief of artillery of the First Corps, an elitist from New York and something of a snob. Before Chancellorsville, he wrote, Howard ... is brave enough and a most perfect gentleman. He is a Christian as well as a man of ability, but there is some doubt as to his having snap enough to manage the Germans who require to be ruled with a rod of iron. After Chancellorsville, Wainwright termed the attacks on Howard as outrageous. Wrote Wainwright, He is the only religious man of high rank that I know of in the army and, in the little intercourse I have had with him, shewed himself the most polished gentleman I have met.²²

StonewallJackson smashed Howard’s Eleventh Corps in a surprise evening attack at Chancellorsville, and much of it fled before the Confederate assault. This battle is often considered to be General Lee’s greatest victory and was a fitting climax to Jackson’s short but illustrious career. Many people, including much of the press, blamed the Army of the Potomac’s defeat on the Eleventh Corps and were particularly critical of its German element, although the Germans constituted less than half of the corps' strength. Those who were more fair conceded that any corps placed in the Eleventh’s position would have behaved about the same. Yet, although there was much anger within the corps for the unfair criticism its soldiers believed they had received, some of its members had doubts about the corps' capabilities. Captain Winkler of the staff of Schurz’s division wrote on 11 June that he was apprehensive about the way the corps would behave in the campaign ahead. He had little confidence in it, not because of its German units as such, for he belonged to one, but because in his opinion the old regiments of the corps were rent by jealousy and intrigues among the officers and discipline was lacking.²³

General Lee launched his Pennsylvania campaign on 3 June, eight days before Winkler penned his comment about the Eleventh Corps. Lee believed that a foray across the Potomac was the best way of defending Virginia. He could not attack the Federal army in its position near Fredericksburg with any great hope of success, and another battle in Virginia would probably be no more decisive than his victory at Chancellorsville had been. He resolved, therefore, to move the scene of hostilities north of the Potomac and in doing so draw the Federals from Virginia, break up their campaign plans for the summer, and possibly win a decisive victory. He wrote also of other valuable results that might be obtained, not the least of which were the supplies that might be garnered from the Pennsylvania countryside.²⁴

Lee and most of Longstreet’s and Ewell’s corps and Stuart’s division were in the Culpeper area on 9 June when Federal cavalry with some infantry support crossed the Rappahannock River to disperse and destroy the rebel force assembled in the vicinity of Culpeper. The result was the cavalry battle of Brandy Station, which was a drawn fight and an embarrassment for Jeb Stuart, although his troopers finally prevailed.²⁵

On the following day, 10 June, Ewell’s corps set out in the van of the army for Pennsylvania. Early’s and Johnson’s divisions struck Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy’s force of about 8,000 at Winchester, Virginia, on 14 June and destroyed it, capturing 23 pieces of artillery, 300 loaded wagons, and 200,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition. Stonewall Jackson could not have done better. In the meantime, Rodes’s division captured Martinsburg along with five more cannons and an abundance of supplies.²⁶

Ewell’s corps moved on in the wake of Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins’s cavalry brigade. The corps crossed the Potomac on 15 June. Ewell delayed his march briefly in the Hagerstown area and then continued north up the Cumberland Valley toward Harrisburg. His troops swept the country of needed supplies as they went along. One column under Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart crossed Tuscarora Mountain to McConnellsburg and rejoined the main column near Carlisle.²⁷

Jubal Early’s division turned east at Chambersburg and swept through Gettysburg on its way to York and to the Susquehanna River at Wrights-ville. General Lee gave a specific reason for Early’s diversion; he hoped that Early’s division’s presence in the Gettysburg-York area would hold the Army of the Potomac east of the mountains after it crossed into Maryland and lessen its threat to the Confederates' line of communications in the Cumberland Valley. During this stage of its march, Early’s division had the help of Lt. Col. Elijah V. White’s 35th Cavalry Battalion (the Comanches) and the 17th Virginia Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Col. William H. French. On its way Gordon’s brigade met and routed the 26th Pennsylvania Emergency Regiment. At York, Early’s division picked up more booty, but the Federals burned the bridge over the Susquehanna at Wrightsville before the Confederates could seize it.

Longstreet’s and Hill’s corps followed Ewell at midmonth. In the meantime, General Hooker swung the Army of the Potomac north, keeping it between the Confederate positions as he knew them and Washington. There were fights at Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville on 17-21 June as Federal cavalry probed the Confederate screen. When General Lee was satisfied that Hooker’s reaction was of a defensive character, he ordered Longstreet and Hill to follow Ewell across the Potomac. They crossed on 24 and 25 June.²⁸

The Union army approached the Potomac in a series of halts and marches. Its Twelfth Corps took position near Leesburg on 18 June in order to support the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry and to cover the nearby Potomac crossings. When it became apparent that the Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the river, the Army of the Potomac crossed into Maryland at Edwards’s Ferry on 25, 26, and 27 June, and by 28 June was concentrated in the Frederick area.²⁹

While Early marched to Gettysburg, York, and Wrightsville, Rodes’s division marched up the Cumberland Valley, reaching Carlisle on 27 June. There, in the rich Carlisle area that Ewell likened unto a hole full of blubber to a Greenlander, the Confederates found horses, cattle, flour, and grain. While some troops collected these supplies, Capt. Henry B. Richardson, Ewell’s engineer, escorted by Jenkins’s brigade, scouted the defenses of Harrisburg. Rodes’s men contemplated with eagerness Harrisburg’s capture on the following day.³⁰

Ewell had been stationed at Carlisle Barracks just after graduating from West Point, yet he did not view the area with nostalgia. Instead, he observed that its residents look as sour as vinegar, and, I have no doubt, would gladly send us all to Kingdom come if they could. He did send Majs. Campbell Brown and Benjamin H. Green of his staff to a family he had known to see if they were alright. The majors enjoyed both the visit and some brandy that the family served. Ewell assured some local ministers that they could hold services on the following day, a Sunday, and when asked by the Episcopal rector if they could pray for the president, he made his classic reply, Certainly ... he did not know anyone who needed such prayer more. Ewell’s report said nothing of such things, of course. It did state that agreeably to the views of the general commanding, I did not burn Carlisle Barracks. Jeb Stuart, three of whose brigades were stumbling along east of the Army of the Potomac and out of touch with General Lee, would reach Carlisle on 1 July. He would burn the barracks then.³¹

While at Carlisle, Ewell received a summons from General Lee to march south and join the main army in the Gettysburg-Cashtown area. Ewell had conducted a bold march, a grand raid, essentially devoid of errors even in hindsight. It seems likely that he would have captured Harrisburg had he been allowed to press ahead for another day or so. Yet more urgent matters were at hand. The Army of the Potomac had appeared north of the Potomac, and it demanded the Army of Northern Virginia’s undivided attention.³²

Howard and the other Federal corps commanders had no opportunity to distinguish themselves on the march north. Unlike Ewell, who had operated under instructions of a general nature, they worked as components of a great machine. Army headquarters prescribed their daily marches; they had the arduous task of seeing that the headquarters' orders were obeyed. On the morning of 28 June near Frederick, Maryland, they received surprising news that must have made most of them rejoice. General Hooker was gone, and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade now commanded the Army of the Potomac.³³

Meade continued the movement north on 29 June on a broad front screened by his cavalry. He sent Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds and the First Corps and Howard’s Eleventh Corps to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where the two corps and Brig. Gen. John Buford’s division of cavalry constituted the army’s left. Meade knew generally of the location of Lee’s army and prepared to meet it. He informed Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck at 11:00 A.M. on 29 June that he was trying to hold his force together in the hope that he might fall upon a portion of the Confederate army.³⁴

When General Howard reached Emmitsburg on 29 June he met a party of Jesuit fathers associated with St. Joseph’s College. The fathers, whose patriotism was equaled by their good sense, invited the corps commander to make his headquarters at the college. The day, said Howard, had been cold and rainy, the roads heavy, and the march very tiresome. He yielded to their offer and accepted their comfortable room and bed in preference to his tent and cot.³⁵

The situation became more tense. On 30 June General Meade ordered General Reynolds to take command of the three corps forming the left wing of the Army of the Potomac. These were his own First Corps and the Eleventh Corps, both of which were near Emmitsburg, and the Third Corps, which would be marching toward Emmitsburg from Taneytown. That morning Reynolds advanced the First Corps along the road to Gettysburg and halted it near Marsh Creek. He made his headquarters at Moritz Tavern. Reynolds would see Howard at the tavern that evening. The marching was almost over.³⁶

2

THE ONLY POSITION

On the evening of 30 June, Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds and Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard met in the back room of Moritz Tavern, a brick house beside the Emmitsburg Road about seven miles south of Gettysburg and a mile north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Reynolds, a Pennsylvanian and commander of the First Corps, Army of the Potomac, had been designated that day as temporary commander of the army’s left wing, the three corps nearest the known locations of the enemy. His own First Corps, now under the temporary command of Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday, commander of its Third Division, was bivouacked along the road near Marsh Creek. Howard’s Eleventh Corps was at Emmitsburg, Maryland, and Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles’s Third Corps had moved that day from Taneytown, Maryland, to Bridgeport, a hamlet on the Monocacy River about four miles east of Emmitsburg.¹

Schurz’s division of the Eleventh Corps camped at Emmitsburg on the grounds of St. Joseph’s College, a Roman Catholic school for girls. Schurz had persuaded the school’s mother superior to lend him the use of one of the nunnery’s buildings for his headquarters staff, suggesting that it would be protected better by having the headquarters party in it than it would be by having sentries posted outside. The good lady was cordial—what choice did she have—and she turned Schurz over to her chaplain, who played the gracious host and conducted some of the headquarters staff on a tour of the school. So far did hospitality extend that the sisters served dinner to Schurz and his staff, and one officer was permitted to give an impromptu recital on the school’s organ.²

Officers and men in lower echelons received less preferential treatment. June 30 was the day of the army’s bimonthly muster for pay—a burdensome task in paperwork for many company officers and noncommissioned officers. Soldiers who were Roman Catholic, and had time, received communion in the college’s chapel. That evening some Germans in the corps sang Morgenrot and other German songs around their campfires and pondered their fate in the battle ahead.³

General Howard had enjoyed the comfort of a bed in the priests' quarters on the previous night and was looking forward to another night of rest when he received a message from Reynolds inviting him to Moritz Tavern for a talk. Howard, accompanied by an aide and orderly, set out for the tavern at dusk and reached it in about an hour. After dismounting, he walked to a small, sparsely furnished room at the rear of the house, on its south side, where he found Reynolds at a table spread with papers and maps. Reynolds, whom he had known when on the West Point faculty, gave him his usual cordial greeting. Before getting down to business, Reynolds, Howard, and some staff officers had some supper and cheerful conversation.⁴

Reynolds was about ten years older than Howard, and Howard admired him. Howard remembered him in later years as an officer who governed with a steady hand, was generous and quick to recognize merit, sought to gain the confidence of his subordinates, and was foremost in battle. In later years, he likened him to Gen. George H. Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, with whom Howard campaigned in Tennessee and Georgia in 1864, but Howard believed Reynolds to have been less reticent than Thomas and not quite so tenacious of purpose.⁵

After eating, Reynolds showed Howard the order placing him in command of the army’s left wing. The two generals studied maps of the locality, numerous reports on the whereabouts and doings of Confederate units, the locations of the corps of the Army of the Potomac, and General Meade’s instructions. Both probably had collected rumors and bits of information during the day and had them to share, but they must have relied mostly on dispatches from Meade’s headquarters and other army sources, particularly from Buford’s cavalry division, which screened the army’s left and was operating between Reynolds and the enemy.⁶

Buford provided two bits of information on 30 June that, in retrospect, had great significance. One was the capture of a dispatch from Jubal Early to an unnamed cavalry colonel that said that Ewell would be in Heidlers-burg, ten miles north of Gettysburg. The other, sent from Gettysburg, informed Reynolds and Meade that a Confederate regiment had approached the town but had retired on the approach of Buford’s cavalry.⁷

Map 2.1. Gettysburg Campaign, 30 June-1 July

The two generals conferred until nearly 11:00 P.M., expecting to get orders for 1 July from army headquarters all the while. When it became late and the orders did not come, Howard rode the rough track back to Emmitsburg and his comfortable bed. Reynolds drafted a letter to Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, Meade’s chief of staff. He stated that he had forwarded all of the information that he had received and then offered an opinion that he had probably developed in his conversation with Howard. If the enemy advanced on Gettysburg and the Federals were to fight a defensive battle in their present vicinity, the position that he would occupy would be just north of Emmitsburg so as to protect the plank road to Taneytown and the left of the army. If he took this position, the enemy then might be expected to try to turn his left by swinging down from Fairfield, Pennsylvania, toward the area south of Emmitsburg. That said, his evening closed with the receipt of a dispatch from Buford timed 10:30 P.M. that stated that Hill’s corps was gathering near Cashtown at the entrance of the pass in South Mountain eight miles west of Gettysburg, that Long-street was behind Hill, and that Ewell’s corps was apparently approaching from the north. Reynolds digested this information and forwarded it on to army headquarters. Then he wrapped himself in a blanket and fell asleep on the tavern’s floor.⁸

Howard had hardly fallen asleep in Emmitsburg when a courier awakened him with dispatches from Meade’s headquarters nine miles to the east in Taneytown. He read them quickly before sending them on to Reynolds. One document was headed Orders and dated 30 June. Its information was not as current as that sent by Buford to Reynolds for it announced that Hill and Longstreet were believed to be at Chambersburg, partly toward Gettysburg, that Ewell was at Carlisle and York, and that the Confederates seemed to be moving toward Gettysburg. Based on what he knew, Meade believed that his army had relieved the threat to Harrisburg and Philadelphia and that he should now look to his own army. To that end, he ordered its various corps to move toward the enemy on 1 July in a cautious, probing manner. The First Corps was to move to Gettysburg, the Eleventh either to Gettysburg or to supporting distance of the First, and the Third to Emmitsburg to cover their left. The Second would march to Taneytown twelve miles south of Gettysburg, and the Twelfth to Two Taverns just five miles southeast of Gettysburg on the Baltimore Pike. Over to the east, the Fifth Corps was to move to Hanover, and the Sixth to Manchester, Maryland. Since it was likely that battle was near, Meade ordered the army’s empty wagons, surplus baggage, and other impedimenta back to Union Bridge, Maryland, in the army’s rear. That area would become his army’s supply point.⁹

A circular with later information on the enemy accompanied the orders. In it, Meade said that the army should remain in the positions designated until the situation became more clear. More to the point though, the army was to ready itself for battle. The men were to receive three days' rations, the infantrymen sixty rounds of ammunition to carry on their persons. The trains of wagons and pack animals, except for ammunition wagons and ambulances, were to go to the rear, and corps commanders were to have their commands ready to march at a moment’s notice. The long campaign was approaching its climax.¹⁰

After Howard read the dispatches, he sent them on to Reynolds by an aide who would return with any orders that Reynolds might have for him. It seems likely that Howard prepared and sent off to his three division commanders—Francis C. Barlow, Adolph von Steinwehr, and Carl Schurz—orders regarding their trains and to prepare for an early march. Barlow’s division would go directly to Gettysburg by the Emmitsburg Road, while the other two divisions would take a road that intersected the Emmitsburg Road about a mile north of Moritz Tavern and ran east from there past Horner’s Mill on Rock Creek to the Taneytown Road, which they would follow to Gettysburg four miles to the north.¹¹

The sun rose at about 4:30 on 1 July, but clouds covered the sky much of the day, and some Union soldiers remembered scattered showers that made marching difficult. It was a warm, sultry summer day with a slight breeze from the south—a better day for growing corn than for fighting a battle.¹²

Meade’s orders for the First and Eleventh corps to move to Gettysburg reached Moritz Tavern about 4:00 A.M. Reynolds’s aide, Maj. William Riddle, awakened the general reluctantly, and Reynolds stirred himself to action. He rode north to Marsh Creek, where Brig. Gen. James S. Wads-worth and his division had spent the night, and ordered the New Yorker to march his division on to Gettysburg. It is likely that he alerted Double-day to the move before riding to see Wadsworth, and on his return to the tavern met with Doubleday there. At about 6:00 A.M., Reynolds explained the situation to Doubleday, said that he would go to Gettysburg with Wadsworth’s division, and asked Doubleday to follow with his own and Robinson’s divisions. The First Corps did not get off to an early start. It was 8:00 A.M. before Wadsworth’s men were collected and moving. Doubleday wrote that it was over an hour and a half before his own division was formed and on the way, and Robinson’s followed Doubleday’s.¹³

Reynolds did not see Howard on the morning of 1 July, but they exchanged messages at an early hour. Reynolds wrote Howard that he was going to Gettysburg and asked Howard, who would go there also, to let him know where the Eleventh Corps and its headquarters would be. He asked Howard to send a staff officer to him in Gettysburg and suggested he had better turn off north of Marsh Creek, pretty close to the town. At 6:00 A.M., Howard informed Reynolds that he had received orders from Meade’s headquarters to move to within supporting distance of the First Corps at Gettysburg, and he gave Reynolds his proposed order of march. He went on to say that unless Reynolds desired otherwise, the Eleventh Corps would encamp near the J. Wintz Place (the Peach Orchard) about a mile and a half from Gettysburg. In a later note, Capt. Edward C. Baird of Reynolds’s staff cautioned Howard that the two corps would be using the road to Gettysburg and that the movement of trains would be subordinated to the movement of troops but the trains might be able to move up later. Obviously, at this time Reynolds did not foresee the enormous scope of battle that was soon to

Reviews for Gettysburg--Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill

[Ed Moyers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

this is a good book.. i had it for a long time..i read it about 3 times.. but i went to Nairobi Kenya in 2014 and i came back it got left behind